Lazzaro Felice (Happy as Lazzaro) is a cinematic feat that spans across time and place and is rich in complexity. Winner of Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and starring director Alice Rohrwacher’s sister as one of the supporting characters most instrumental for the development of the second part of the narrative, the film ambitiously tells the tale of a rural community and the ordeals its members are subjected to over the years.

Nastro d’Argento award-nominated black comedy Put Grandma in the Freezer (Metti la nonna in freezer, 2018), codirected by Giancarlo Fontana and Giuseppe G. Stasi, is one of the highlights in this year’s Lavazza Film Festival.

Why do Italians survive winter without going to Queensland (or Puglia)?
The first time I was served a hot chocolate in Italy I thought I must have asked for the wrong thing. For a start it wasn’t liquid, my spoon could stand up in it. Secondly, it was covered in a tower of whipped cream.

I will always remember my first exam at an Italian university. I had barely been seven months in Italy. I had arrived on a scholarship from the Italian government, enthusiastic and fresh-faced, just after graduating in Italian Studies at Melbourne University.

Seventy years ago, Europe was being torn apart by its second catastrophic conflict in a generation, but in the lapse of a decade something changed, hopefully forever. On 25 March 1957, a Treaty establishing the European Economic Community was signed in Rome by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany.

My introduction to Italian art was in the form of an imperious and shocking painting that my mother cut out from a book of art she had brought to Australia from Italy in a shipping chest. My father framed it in a veined wood veneer all shiny and orange-brown.

When thinking about Italian art what comes to mind is almost exclusively art from the past. With fifty UNESCO sites, the largest number of World Heritage Convention protected sites, and more than 3,400 museums and 2,000 archaeological sites, Italy has the largest cultural heritage in the world, boasting great names that have influenced generations of artists.

Lately I have seen a number of pieces of journalism about kindness, its power, and whether we as Australians have enough of it. An article in The Age was about the kindness of some Roman policemen that seemed to touch the hearts of many.

This Spring, as you turn over the soil for your cabbage patch, stop for a moment to think a little about where your seeds come from and what they mean to you.Through two different approaches, artists Lauren Wells and Maria Thereza Alves are exploring how the histories of commerce and labour have led to the wealth of choice we now take for granted in our domestic vegetable gardens.

Below I have tried to briefly list a few clues for those who study the Italian language. I hope it will help them clarify some of the doubts and difficulties they may encounter during the learning process.

Europe, or rather what is left of it, seems to have reached a live-or-die situation. It was pushed into it from both within and without, and the two are connected. From inside, it is smitten by the radicalization of its Muslim inhabitants and the loss of the core structures of its society: the family, marriage, the Christian faith, and all the values based on those things.

Lucia Petrucci, a 26-year-old illustrator born in Fabriano—a medieval little town famous its celebrated paper mills – left Italy to move to Australia two years ago when she decided to follow her boyfriend. She had no idea that her life would change for the better but, as it turned out, this country gave her the opportunity to harness her peculiar talent.

When my Italian husband first told me that spring in Italy began on the 21st of March rather than the 1st, I thought he was joking.
“Oh really?” I exclaimed sarcastically. “And what date does summer begin on then, the 8th of June?”.

June 2nd is the day when we remember and celebrate the powerful choice, which the Italian people made through a referendum, establishing our new form of government. Such an historical step was taken just after coming out of a tragic war, a repressive dictatorship and a foreign occupation.

Migration has always occurred in human history as a result of what can be described as either a ‘push’ or ‘pull’ movement of people. If one considers the great shifts to or from the Western world, the first happened across the 4th and 5th century after Christ and it was a ‘push’, with hordes of people invading the Roman Empire and eventually causing its fall.

We all know that travel is a very important aspect of our personal growth. I believe that living abroad is even a better and more powerful experience. You not only discover different ways of living, talking, behaving, eating, having fun etc., but it is like they become part of you. This is amazing because, if you take the time to think about it and create awareness, you can really learn a lot about yourself and how you see the world.

An Italian filmmaker has brought back to life the stories of migrants from Molise through a series of photos shot sixty years ago.
How many of us have ancestry from more than one country? Most. Maybe all.

Those, in the English-speaking world, who have heard of Pier Paolo Pasolini, are most likely to know of him as a director of controversial films. However, Pasolini, who was born in Bologna in 1922 and murdered in the outskirts of Rome in 1975, started his creative life as a writer of poetry and prose.

Italy has been the cradle of modern and contemporary design since the beginning of the 20th Century. In the years preceding and immediately after WWI, our industrial design distinguished itself by its focus on replicating intricate details. In those times, the first pieces of furniture design were produced on a mass-scale and the luxury industry made its debut in Rome, Milan and Naples’ shop windows.

From the window you could see the clock tower: it struck nine and this meant that the Math teacher would stay another hour in the classroom. Susanna listened, from the outside you could hear a dog barking. She should not be affected by that noise, but any valid reason was estranged from that boring lesson. She did not like school and mathematics either.

As many readers may know, Italy held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2014. It is now time for an account of what has been achieved. Our action focused on some key issues to enhance the political role of Europe and respond to the demands of European citizens and the challenges emerging from the international scenario.

2015 marks the 750th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri, the Sommo Poeta (Sublime Poet) as Italian students learn to call him from early on. His writings include profound essays and enchanting short poems; however, he gained enduring fame as author of the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), a masterpiece in Italian and European poetry.

The Tyranny of Distance is an expression used by the eminent Australian scholar, Geoffrey Blainey, as the title of a book he wrote some forty years ago and has since become a classic of Australia’s social history. The book argues that geographical isolation was a crucial factor in shaping the destiny of this country.

This is a famous and often reproduced photograph, used to exemplify the migration experience. Legions of viewers have wanted to project or inscribe their interpretations onto this photograph, with comments like: “Ferocious and affectionate mother”.

A ball of yarn, a crochet hook and a hat made by hand.
On a cold winters day, I am sitting on a wooden chest, touching a soft fabric, observing its pattern and recalling the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen.

How can we achieve happiness? By living “la Bella Vita”, the Beautiful Life.
You might wonder, “What does that mean?” We all have dreams and desires of being, doing and having something specific in our lives.

Italy and Australia have many things in common that many people, including government representatives, are unaware of. To begin with, they are together with Canada, the youngest nations of the western world. Italy became a sovereign state in 1861 and Australia in 1901.

It seems that to rise to eminence in politics one must endure disappointment and failure. This is particularly true for a political leader. One cannot become a good leader without suffering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as says Hamlet in his famous monologue.

A hundred years ago, Italy entered the First World War. Having declared a policy of neutrality at the outset of the war on 2 August 1914, the Italian government was eventually persuaded to join the side of the Allies on the 24thof May, 1915. Italy’s decision to enter the war was largely driven by the terms of the secret 1915 Treaty of London under which she had been promised large territorial gains at the close of the war at Austria-Hungary’s expense.

THE REDEMPTION OF THE PINBALL MACHINE
Once considered a source of evil and a symbol of youth rebellion, it is now seen as innocent as a game that can be compared to the blood, drugs and sex you find in today’s video games

After 6 years spent in Melbourne, I recently moved back to my homeland, Italy. A strange feeling, that I could not put my finger on, arouse around Easter this year and then, the idea of going back home for good became more apparent day after day until June, when the idea finally became a decision. My heart knew it, however my head needed more time to accept it.